Production Blog: Filming Over the Weekend

 I am so excited to see you again and to jump right into my second day of filming. The group had planned to film over the weekend to catch up after not filming for so long due to scheduling issues. A convenient weekend was selected by all members, and I was ecstatic to film again! On Saturday, the group met at Ashley's house at around 1 P.M. and began filming. Before the video filming had induced, Jordyn and Ashley worked together to record the audio on the voice recorder which was necessary for one of the scenes being filmed. 

The main focus was on filming the opening scene of the character waking up in the morning. This scene included her awakening, grabbing her glasses, and listening to her tape recording/reading her sheet of paper. The group decided to film in chronological order and began with the awakening scene. This was quite simple as it did not require much effort, and a favorable result was produced in just two takes. I filmed atop a small 3-step ladder to achieve an overhead look. The alarm clock was set for 7:23 and the time was set to 7:22. I began filming once the clock was set, and Ashley waited until the alarm went off to begin the scene. She awakes, stretches out, groans a bit, and that's all there is to it! Next, the scene in which Ashley grabs her glasses was filmed. This scene required the timing to align perfectly, beginning at 7:23 and ending at 7:24. She would quickly reach her hand out, grab the glasses, and move both her hand and glasses out of the frame immediately; afterward, I would pan to the alarm clock as it switches from 7:23 to 7:24. In order to film this, Jordyn set the alarm clock to 7:22 and patiently waited for it to reach 7:23. As soon as it hit 7:23, Jordyn began a stopwatch on her phone to track the time. I suggested that the scene begins at 55 seconds on Jordyn's stopwatch, as it is a quick scene. When it reached 50, I would start filming, and at 54, I would tell Ashley to begin. After many adjustments and many, many takes, the group produced one shot that met all needs. The final part of the waking-up scene was the longest and most difficult part of the entire day of filming. In this scene, Ashley was to put on her glasses, read the sticky note which was on said glasses, and then pick the voice recorder up from her nightstand; while listening to the recording, she would grab the sheet of paper off of her nightstand as well, and begin to read it. The first and most vital part of this scene was ensuring that the recording was correctly set to begin when Ashley hits "play," as the group learned many times, the hard way. I began by filming Ashley in bed, applying her glasses, followed by a quick track to the nightstand where she grabs her voice recorder. After the voice recorder plays out, she reaches for the sheet of paper which was again tracked by the camera. While reading this paper, I laid behind her in bed to capture an over-the-shoulder shot, and then another medium close-up of her face concluded the scene. Apart from the issues with the voice recorder, this was altogether not an extremely difficult scene to film, but still required a moderate amount of takes. After a short lunch break, the group continued filming.

The next issue the group reached was a rather annoying one. For some context, the shirt Ashley was wearing (seen in past blogs) was oddly specific, quite unique, and unfortunately, nowhere to be found during filming. Because of this, the bathroom scene has to be refilmed entirely. Since I have an entire blog on this process, I won't bore you with details, but I will say--it was easier with the experience from the first time. The group was able to re-shoot it in only a few takes. Upon completion of this scene, the group moved on to the last scene of the day: an easy one, finally! 

For the office scene, the group intended to film at Ashley's father's work, but this did not work out and it ended up being filmed at Ashley's house. Jordyn easily located the most office-like setting in the place and added the final touches including the desk phone, computer, pen, and stress ball outlined in the screenplay. The one challenge was aligning Ashley's position with that of the previous scene to create a seemingly effortless transition. I used my reference photo to place Ashley while Jordyn adjusted the camera. This scene was one continuous take, in which Ashley would type for a few seconds, then secretly play a phone ringing sound effect, which she would pause when she picks up the desk phone. She recited a quick line, then a short voice memo of my own voice was played with a sound effect to make it seem as if I was actually on the phone. The scene ended with Ashley smiling off into the distance, which would provide another transition to the next day of filming. 

So glad you joined me today, and see ya again for day 2 tomorrow!